I followed the link to one of the christian blogs that linked to the child abuse blog. One of the commenters there was under the delusion that atheists consider children meat machines. This is a thoroughly disgusting point of view. As part of remembrance day, I listen to "The green fields of France". The lyrics are really sad and hammer home the personal tragedy of those who suffered and died, leaving a void in the lives of others. To say that as an atheist that I see people as meat really is messed up thinking. Do these people really need faith to feel sorrow and pity at the thoughts of the hopes and lives of people being ended? To me as an atheist, I believe these people are gone for ever - a one off event that is easily and tragically snuffed out. This makes life more valuable and people more precious - not something to be tossed away- or even ended in the name of some false god.
Another powerful image is that of the final scenes of "Blackadder goes forth". That is deeply sad, as you were laughing along with the characters, then they go to the trench. There is a brief moment of hope when the guns go silent and the tragic line "hooray, we have survived the great war of 1914-1917" is proclaimed. Sweeping to the poppy field after the group goes over the top is a real tear jerker - you just know they died!
13 comments:
Billy,
I agree. Knowing, as I do, some decent and splendid religious people, I can, most of the time, agree to disagree with them, but one thing that never fails to rile me into giddy fury is the intimation (when it occurs) that atheists view their fellow humans as “meat machines”. This is such a colossal misinterpretation of the view of literally every atheist I’ve ever known that it’s hard to know where (or how) to begin...
Anyway, splendid post. I was reminded of something I’ve quoted previously that Stephen Fry wrote during the first Gulf War
“Soldiers are made from flesh and bone and tissue that is, as Wilfred Owen said, ‘so dear achieved.’ It has taken them from seventeen to thirty years to grow into what they are. In seconds it can be a tangle of blood and smashed material that can never be put right again..."
The idea that atheists are somehow incapable of appreciating this, or of remembering and being thankful for the sacrifices of the uncountably many that secured their freedom, is frankly beyond offensive. (And I genuinely don’t know of any atheists that have accused religious people of being similarly crass...)
Mark_W
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go…
Siegfried Sassoon.
It is something that I know some preachers actually tell their congregations about atheists.
I remember DR rather sickeningly using this approach.
http://richarddawkins.net/articleCo
mments,1685,Teacher-I-was-fired-
said-Bible-isnt-literal,Megan-
Hawkins-Des-Moines-Register,page4#74561
That stephen fry quote is really powerful
One of the commenters there was under the delusion that atheists consider children meat machines. This is a thoroughly disgusting point of view.
You said it more politely than I would have said...
sick misinformed motherfu...
I’ll stop.
Another powerful image is that of the final scenes of "Blackadder goes forth".
Indeed - probably summed up WWI better than any documentary
Lee
I have never watched that final scene of Blackadder before.
90 years and 1 day after the end of that war, I shed tears.
Thank you for posting it.
Re, "fellow humans as “meat machines”
Gah. Never heard that said. Not even sure what they mean by it.
ER Gah. Never heard that said. Not even sure what they mean by it.
I'm guessing it has something with their misinformed belief of where people get their morals from...
They believe morals come from God
atheists don't believe in God
therefore atheists don't have morals.
Without morals, people are just pieces of walking meat according - to their logic.
I suppose, if they continue with their logic (and my strawman but I don’t care) – since atheists have turned away from Jesus, we are going to burn in Hell anyway – they might as well help us along by setting fire to us... you know, to save our souls or something. After all, they would not want our ideas spreading to their children... that would be evil.
And of course, they would be doing a very moral act if they did such a thing... according to them.
(But how could I prove them wrong?)
Lee
Billy-
"I followed the link to one of the christian blogs that linked to the child abuse blog."
Yes, I too made this mistake. It was certainly "educational".
"To say that as an atheist that I see people as meat really is messed up thinking."
It's typical of fundamentalists; they can't imagine how people can love and find meaning without gods, so therefore we're callous and unfeeling. It's just a way of trying to make themselves feel superior.
The whole meat machine thing also shows a profound ignorance of biology too. The last time I looked, the guy had not posted my reply, although I did get a couple of emails from him sying that I knew it was wrong to bash god - I put him straight on that. I may publish them later.
Steve, One of the saddest things as well about that blackadder series was that "Baldrick was "harmless" and didn't even know why he was there. It is displayed in this classic scene:
Private Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?
Captain Blackadder: Do you mean "How did the war start?"
Lieutenant George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire- building.
Captain Blackadder: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.
Lieutenant George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not.
[aside, to Baldrick]
Lieutenant George: Mad as a bicycle!
Private Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.
Captain Blackadder: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
Private Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.
Captain Blackadder: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.
Lieutenant George: By Gum, this is interesting. I always loved history. The Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and his six knives, all that.
Captain Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Private Baldrick: But, this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Captain Blackadder: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
Private Baldrick: What was that, sir?
Captain Blackadder: It was bollocks.
Private Baldrick: So the poor old ostrich died for nothing then.
I wonder how many that was true for?
And then twenty years later it happened again.
Billy et al, not just on land either. The Battle of Jutland was horrendous. Massive loss of life at sea. Someone has posted a good video on Youtube showing the ships and the details of the battle. Its grim.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rz6GuTOdkz0
SG
SG,
I seem to remember somthing about how the whole thing could have been avoided. I seem to remember there was a massive cock up.
Then, there were so many tragic cockups
I seem to remember the life expectency of a WW1 pilot was 20 mins of combat too
Billy, Steve, (and everyone)
The bit that always gets me in that last episode of Blackadder is when Captain Darling, having, due to General Melchett's insanity, missed his chance to sit out the final push, arrives at the front line and says (approximately; I'm flying by memory here) to Blackadder:
"Made a note about it all in my diary on the way over. Simply says: 'Bugger'."
This contrast (in a sitcom!) between the fatalism of Blackadder and Darling on the one hand, and (and Billy says) the naive harmlessness of Baldrick and uninformed gung-ho-ness of George on the other, is splendidly (and movingly) well done, I think.
Indeed, to diverge from the point (sorry!), not the least remarkable thing about Blackadder is that one of the writers (R. Curtis) would go on to write something as egregious and offensive as Love, Actually. How an author of these scenes could later think that "jokes" based on the colossaly wrongheaded and deeply unfunny assumption that Martine McCutcheon is fat would be amusing is frankly beyone me (though maybe I'm just becoming a boring old fart...)
ER,
Re, "fellow humans as “meat machines”
Gah. Never heard that said...
Really? You've obviously come across fewer christians than I have, lucky you! :-) (See Billy's link for starters) Of course, not all christians think this way by any means, but I'm really surprised you've never come across the sort of "reasoning" Lee mentions before...Maybe the UK is becoming more fundamentalist, but in the days when I still had TV, following the publication of The God Delusion, almost every cleric that I saw on various religious programmes tried to play the "without god and the bible there is no reason not to be good" card...
Mark_W
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